The Friend of Health, part 2

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of the homeopathic system of medicine, would have been amused by the current fad of mushroom coffee. He wasn't a fan of broad statements about what is or is not healthy, and would disagree with the mushroom coffee promoters, who say that everyone should drink two cups a day to improve mental clarity and gut health. Hahnemann believed that people should develop their own instincts about what is best to eat and drink, and not depend on others for their menus. Trusting our instincts is something he strongly believed in.

His Dietetic Conversation, in his book The Friend of Health, begins with a humorous retelling of an exchange with his brother:

Brother: Are you not ashamed of yourself, to be eating pears early in the morning? You will chill your stomach…

Hahnemann: Certainly not, for I have no fear of such a catastrophe. But tell me, at what time of day should one eat fruit?

Brother: After dinner, and as a rule, after having taken something warm in the stomach; such was the opinion of our ancestors, and they were no fools.

Hahnemann: But we moderns, on the contrary, are of course? ...But tell me, can the stomach of different individuals be regulated by one general rule, even were it as old as the twelve commandments? Is not every one's stomach as peculiar as every person's foot, which the shoe of another will not and cannot fit?

The conversation continues but, to sum it up, Hahnemann writes (my edits in parentheses) …"where is the wise man to be found who is capable of rightly dictating to me in a book, once and for all, what and how much I ought to eat and drink? …I must judge by my own sensations what and how much will suit me; I must know it, or no one else can, unless, perhaps, my ordinary medical attendant.

How can a thing that we swallow be, under all circumstances and in every condition of the body, universally wholesome, healthful, innocent, hurtful, or poisonous? There is a time for everything, says the (sage), and to my mind he speaks much more sensibly than most of the (dieticians)."

Hahnemann tells the story of a woman he treated following a difficult labor, who had intolerable after-pains and a great loss of blood. "She cried for coffee, although when she was well, she could scarcely endure it…A few cups of very strong coffee were given to her, and the hemorrhage and pains ceased suddenly; opium would have had no effect in such a case."

He tells of another instance: "The (sickly) woman in the family way puts chalk into her mouth and if we keep it from her, she scrapes the lime from the wall and consumes it. She knows not that she has an intolerable acid in her stomach, and still less does she know the chemical property of the chalk of neutralizing and removing acids. Nevertheless, an awakened wise instinct implanted by the infinitely wise Creator steers her in a direction of lessening her ailment."

And: "The man who is extremely exhausted from starvation desires a spoonful of wine; what tells him that a supply of meat and bread which an ignorant person would endeavor to force him to swallow, might prove fatal to him?"

And: "A person who has contracted a bilious fever…longs for nothing so much as fruit. Who tells him that this is almost the only thing that can do him good?"

Hahnemann concludes, "I might give you many more examples of the expression of the instinct of the stomach, did I not fear to weary you. We understand it under the terms of appetite and repugnance, two very important but much neglected monitors for our well-being!

If we would only study this voice of nature often enough, and in a perfectly unprejudiced manner, we would obtain a great facility in understanding its feeblest manifestations; we should be enabled thereby to escape a large number of diseases, and in many cases to attain to long life without difficulty.

But we find (as a proof of all I have said) that this small voice of nature is only audible to persons who live upon very simple articles of food, and that they come at last to understand it in a very remarkable manner; almost just as the cattle, which we allow to range at large over the fields, never swallow a plant that would hurt them, but only those that are suitable for them.

This feeling, this instinct, as I may term it, is in persons who regard moderation as one of the greatest virtues, so watchful, so active – they hear this internal voice as distinctly as any animal to which we especially attribute instinct, so distinctly, that they can determine to a mouthful when they have taken enough for their heath."

Centuries later, people are still not encouraged to trust their instincts. We are trained from an early age to listen instead to our parents, our teachers, our friends, our doctors, our politicians, and even our celebrities. What if, instead, we began looking within, exploring that unique inner voice that has been silenced?

Hahnemann speaks of the need for "simple articles of food," which today means real food.  Wouldn't we feel better if we stopped eating products that are filled with impossible-to-pronounce ingredients, which serve only to preserve, enhance taste or—on a more diabolical level—to increase cravings or monetize waste products?

Do you have any comments or thoughts? I'd love to hear from you!